Splined lifting tube



Sept. 4, 1962 H. w. MOSER ETAL SPLINED LIFTING TUBE Filed Jan. 27, 19612 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTORS, HENRY W. MOSER WILLIAM J. EMERSON IRVINGKESTENBAUM ATTYS.

P 1962 H. w. MOSER ETAL 3,052,422

SPLINED LIFTING TUBE Filed Jan. 27, 1961 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVEN+OR$IHENRY W. MOSER WLLIAM J. EMERSON BY IRVING KESTENBAUM ATTYS.

United States Patent Ufllice 3,052,422 Patented Sept. 4, 1962 3,052,422SPLINED LIFTING TUBE Henry W. Moser and William J. Emerson, Haddonfield,and Irving Kestenbaum, Merchantville, N.J., assignors to Samuel M.Langston Company, Camden, N.J., a Corporation of New Jersey Filed Jan.27, 1961, Ser. No. 86,567 Claims. (Cl. 242-684) The present inventionrelates generally to improvements in shaftless type unwind or mill rollstands of a type generally described and shown in co-pending US.application Serial No. 635,808, filed January 23, 1957, now US. Patent2,991,953 entitled Mill Roll Stand and which is assigned to a commonassignee with the present application.

As set forth specifically in said co-pending application, and to whichreference is made for details of construction and operation, the machineconsists basically of a horizontal shaft or tube supported and journaledin side frames at the opposite ends thereof and to which is keyed a pairof arms on opposing ends which are equipped at their free ends with arotatable roll lifting and supporting spindle and a spindle cone chuck.

These cone chucks are inwardly pointed toward each other and are on thesame horizontal center line so that when the arms are made to Slidelaterally toward each other on the horizontal shaft, a roll or reel ofsheet material can be engaged between the arms and on the cone chucks topermit rotation of the roll or reel when the arms are elevated byrotating the horizontal tube or shaft to lift the roll.

The horizontal shaft is rotated by two iluid cylinders, the head end ofeach of which is attached to an end frame and the piston rod end isattached to a bell crank collar or the like located and keyed to thehorizontal shaft at each end. Two fluid cylinders are also provided forsliding the roll supporting arms laterally on the horizontal shaft.These latter fluid cylinders position the arms laterally andadditionally provide the power to force the cone chucks into the rollcore.

In the previous types of machines it has been the practice to key thesupport arms to the horizontal shaft and also to precision fit thesupport arms to the horizontal shaft. As a result of this constructionthe keys were imparted the torque load caused by lifting the roll andtransferred this load to the horizontal shaft. Additionally in this typeof construction the horizontal shaft took directly a large share of theload resulting from the twist ing of the support arm caused by theoff-center load pulling down on the spindle chucks. Deflection of thehorizontal shaft caused when loaded by the supported roll resulted inthe shaft not only being bent slightly but under some circumstances itbecame elliptical in shape. This deflection and out of roundness of theshaft and the fact that the bearing surface length of the end of thesupport arms was relatively short in comparison with the diameter of theshaft rendered it diflicult to move the support arms laterally in unisonwhen loaded and frequently resulted in jerky and chattery movement.

It is a primary object of the present invention to provide a mechanismwherein these objections in prior known devices is overcome and inaccomplishing this two keys are mounted diametrically opposite to eachother on the horizontal load supporting shaft which act as male splinesand two female mating keyways are cut in a keyway self-aligning seatdiametrically opposite to each other in each of the roll lifting armsand serve as female splines.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide aconstruction wherein precision fitting of the end of the roll supportarms with respect to the horizontal shaft or tube is not required andwherein the lifting torque load and the load which tends to twist thesupport arms resulting from lifting the roll is taken by the keys in thehorizontal shaft which in turn transfer these loads to this shaftwithout requiring that the arms bear on the tube outside surface at anypoint.

It is a further object of invention to provide a construction whichpermits easy and smooth lateral movement of the support arms in unison,even when loaded and eliminates the necessity for close machining of theoutside diameter of the shaft and the support arm.

An additional object of the present invention is to provide aconstruction susceptible of an even distribution of loads and forcesover the entire surface of the key and the keyway.

Additional objects and advantages of the present invention will be morereadily apparent from the following detailed description of anembodiment thereof when taken together with the accompanying drawings inwhich:

FIG. 1 is a top plan view of a shaftless unwind stand embodying thepresent invention;

FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken on line 2-2 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a fragmentary enlarged view, partly in section, showingdetails of construction of the coacting mounting means for the rolllifting arms;

FIG. 4 is a fragmentary sectional view taken on line 44 of FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a fragmentary sectional view taken on line 5-5 of FIG. 3; and

FIG. 6 is a fragmentary perspective View of the coacting mounting meansof the invention.

Referring now in detail to the drawings a horizontal lifting tube It issupported at its opposite ends in side frames 12 and 14. Bellcrankcollars 16 are located at opposite ends of the tube and are keyedthereto. Fluid lift cylinders 18 are positioned at the two sides of thetube, preferably within the end frames, and are connected at one end 20to the end frame for pivoting movement and have their opposite endsconnected at 22 to the bellcrank collars 16. These lift cylinders 18 areadapted for rotating the lifting tube 10 in an obvious manner.

Scanning rolls 25 and 27 are secured in the end frames for operation ina known manner but form no part of the present invention. Roll liftingarms 24 and 26 have at one end spindles and spindle cone chucksgenerally designated 28, 30 adapted for coaction with a reel of paper orthe like 32 in the usual manner and. are adapted to be rotatably brakedby fluid operated friction brakes 34 and 36. The arms 24 and 26 at theends opposite the chucks have hubs 38 and 40. These hubs as shown indetail in FIGS. 3-6 inclusive are substantially hollow and have centralapertures 42 therethrough which permit mounting them over the tubes inthe apparatus when assembling machines embodying the invention. It willbe noted that the aperture 42 is of greater dimension than the exteriordimension of the tube and out of contact therewith. This precludes thenecessity of close machining of the aperture and the exterior of thetube.

The manner in which the arms are mounted on the lift tube as shown anddescribed herein is the departure of the present invention from previousconstructions. This consists in a combination of mechanical elementsoperatively interconnecting the hubs of the arms with the tube.lnteriorly of the substantially hollow hubs there are solid websintegral with the interior of the hub and at diametrically oppositepositions therein although any number and/or spacing of theinterconnecting means can be utilized as required or desired. The webs44 terminate in substantially half round guideways 46 which extendslightly more than as shown in FIG. 3. The webs 44 and guideways 46extend between the side walls of the hubs and as shown in the drawingsexternal flanges 48 are formed on opposite sides of the hubs.Selfaligning keyway seats 50 which are slightly more than 180 areadapted for mounting in the half round guideways 46 and due to the shapeand dimensions of these coasting parts the keyway seats will bemaintained in place during assembly until the arms are assembled on thehorizontal shaft as will be readily apparent.

A female keyway 52 is cut in keyway seat 50 extending through the lengththereof and a matching female keyway seat 54 is cut into lifting tubealong the length thereof. It will be noted that the foregoing describedstructure including the keyways are provided at diametrically oppositepoints of the hub and tube as shown in FIG. 3 for example but additionalones could be provided and in different places thereon. Keys 56 areadapted for insertion in the coacting keyways 52 and S4 at the variouslocations indicated which act as male splines coacting with the keywaysconstituting female splines. A keyseat retainer 58 as shown in FIG. 6 issecured into the outer ends of the keyway seats 50 by screws 60 or thelike and as will be noted have a rectangular cut-out portion 62 whichpermits it to be placed over the keys but in spaced relationship to thesides and tops thereof. A keyseat wiper 64 is secured by bolts 66 to theexterior of keyseat retainer 58 and serves to maintain the upper bearingsurface of key 56 clean from dirt and the like. This keyseat wiper canbe made of any satisfactory available material.

The means for laterally sliding the supporting arms with respect to thelifting tube consist of hydraulic cylinders 68 and 70 having the pistonrod ends thereof attached each to a hub of one of the lifting arms ortubes with the head ends attached to the bellcrank collar 16 or to thelifting tube 10 as desired. These cylinders are arranged close to andparallel to the lifting tube 10 and rotate with this tube and the hubs38 and 40 when the support arms are moved to elevate or depress the reelor roll of sheet material. Appropriate hydraulic circuitry isinterconnected wtih the various cylinders in a known usual manner.

This arrangement makes possible the desired horizontal and angularmovement of the roll support arms without having to precision fit theends of each arm with the exterior of the lifting tube. With thisarrangement the support arm ends do not bear on the horizontal liftingtube but the lifting torque load and the load which tends to twist thesupport arms resulting from lifting the roll is taken by the keys in thelifting tube which in turn transfer these loads to this tube Withoutrequiring that the arms bear on the tube outside surface at any point.The keyways in the support arms take both the twist or torque load andthe off-center load tending to twist the support arms and transfer theseloads to the keys in the horizontal shaft. It will be seen that theproportion of the length of the bearing surface of the keyways to thethickness of the keys is many times greater than the proportion of thesupport arm contact surface length to the horizontal shaft diameter.This proportion results in smooth sliding under load.

The present construction which makes possible a clearance between thesupport arm bore and the lifting tube outside surface while permittingeasy and smooth lateral movement of the support arms, in unison, evenwhen loaded eliminates the necessity for a precision fit between thesupport arms and the horizontal shaft for lifting tube outside surface.A standard sized tubing can be utilized for the lifting tube withoutrequiring that the outside diameter be machined to close tolerances andeliminates the necessity for machining the support arm bore to a closetolerance. This construction also permits painting of the outsidesurface of the lift tube, except for the keys thereon, to preventcorrosion rather than depending on the coating of lubricating grease oroil. It will also be readily understood that the half round keyway seatmakes the keyway self-aligning with the mating key resulting in easierfitting of the keyway to the key and also renders possible the evendistribution of the load over the entire surface of the key and thekeyway.

While one embodiment of the present invention has been shown anddescribed herein, manifestly minor changes in details of constructionwill be apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from thespirit and the scope of the invention as defined in and limited solelyby the appended claims.

We claim:

1. In a mill roll stand, a rotatable lifting tube, roll lifting arms forrotatably supporting a reel of sheet material thereoetween, means forinterconnecting said arms and said tube comprising hubs on said arms,said hubs having apertures therethrough, angularly rotatable keywayseats mounted in said hubs and extending longitudinally therethrough, akeyway in each of said seats, a longitudinally extended keyway in saidtube in coacting position with the keyways in said seats a key engagedin said keyways slidably interconnecting said tube and arms and adaptedfor rotating said arms upon rotation of said tube, the apertures in saidhubs having a larger diameter than the outside diameter of said tubewhereby said hubs and said tube are in spaced non-contacting relationand all forces resulting from lifting loads are taken by said keys whichtransfer the loads to said tube without hearing contact between said armhubs and the outside surface of said tube.

2. In a mill roll stand as claimed in claim 1, said hubs beingsubstantially hollow and having interior solid radially extending Websintegral therewith, said webs terminating in substantially half roundguideways, said keyway seats being substantially half round on thesurface thereof opposite said keyways whereby said keyway seats areself-aligning in said guideways with respect to a mating key.

3. In a mill roll stand as claimed in claim 2, said guideways and saidkeyway seats being slightly greater than whereby said keyway seats willbe maintained in place during assembly of said arms on said tube.

4. In a mill roll stand as claimed in claim 3, a keyway seat retainersecured to each end of each of said seats exteriorly of said hub toretain said seats in said hub.

5. In a mill roll stand as claimed in claim 4, a keyseat wiper securedto each said keyway seat retainer exteriorly thereof and in operativewiping contact with the upper bearing surface of said key.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS1,370,893 Komarek Mar. 8, 1921 1,472,798 Gyllsdorfl' Nov. 6, 19232,499,562 Behrens Mar. 7, 1950 2,973,914 Beninger et al. Mar. 7, 19612,991,953 Moser et al July 11, 1961 FOREIGN PATENTS 441,495 France May29, 1912 467,802 Canada Sept. 5, 1950

